


Afterwards

by shewhowritestoomuch



Category: Black Sails
Genre: (for once in my writing career), Angst, Canon Compliant, Depression, F/M, Happy Ending, If you dislike John Silver this is not the fic for you, Madi is entitled to her anger for as long as she needs, Post Treasure Island, Sad with a Happy Ending, Scurvy, Self-Hatred, please don't read this if its going to mess with your mental health, possible suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 21:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16166990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhowritestoomuch/pseuds/shewhowritestoomuch
Summary: It is a common misconception that refusing to forgive someone for something is mutually exclusive to loving someone.(A post-treasure island fic which examines the lasting resentment existing between Madi and John after the betrayal in the last episode)(Not recommended if you dislike John Silver)





	Afterwards

They had left Bristol shortly after the _Hispaniola_ business, and returned to the island where Madi had spent most of her youth. Her mother had not been happy to see John, and in truth, Madi had not really wanted to bring him.

He had just looked so desolate at the thought of being left alone.

She had set about helping her people to defend themselves from any British incursions. There would be nothing so grand as they had planned in they days of Flint, but they were doing well to keep their independence.

John had not set about doing anything much at all. Her mother had assigned a man to prevent him from committing any more treacherous acts and Madi had given her approval.

The reports that he sent back were, generally speaking, uniform. John would wake late in the day, make the arduous journey up the cliff, spend most of the day there, and return early in the evening.

Madi could attest to his activity at night.

John would eat dinner with her, and despite her longstanding refusal to speak to him beyond the barest necessities, he seemed grateful for the time spent with her. He slept early, often before there were any stars visible in the night sky.

A few nights before he collapsed, she decided to break her rule about speaking with her traitor husband, out of sheer boredom if nothing else.

“My mother has decided that she will relocate the camp before storm season comes about.”

John looked at her with his weary blue eyes.

“Our position here is too well known by the British forces, it’s only a matter of time before we would be forced to confront them, and it’s well known that we lack the resources to commit ourselves to a war effort.”

He looked away.

“My mother is yet to decide your future with us. I thought, when faced with this information, you might like to give your input on this matter.”

John stood and walked out of the hut.

Madi did not try to follow him.

She did not try to locate him the next day, or the day after that.

John Silver had disappointed her many times before, but if there was one thing he had never failed to do, never failed to be, it was to be unpredictable. If he wanted to hide in a forest in an attempt to elicit an emotional reaction from her, then he was welcome to try.

He might be that petty, but she wouldn’t be.

It on was the third day without seeing hide or hair of him that she began to feel some worry for his welfare.

The assigned man had lost track of him sometime on the second day.

And now her mother was determined to figure out what sort of treachery he was perpetuating against them.

Men were sent out, Madi herself accompanied them.

They searched for three hours before they found him propped up on a rock, his hands clutched around his left leg as he sweated profusely.

She bid her men stay. They listened.

She walked in front of her husband, slowly lowered herself to crouch in front of him. She was not as young as she once had been and was fully aware of how sore her joints would be, come the evening.

John must have been too, on some level.

“Don’t.”

Madi crouched anyway.

“In the past, when you have wandered from my side, it has not led to good outcomes for me.”

John shook his head.

“I think we can both agree that your life would have had far better outcomes had I never entered it,” he winced, and Madi followed his arms from the shoulders to his wrists to see what was bothering him so.

The wound had opened again. It had been many years since Madi had seen it like this.

“John, you-”

“In fact, I think your life might have been better if I had never existed in the first place.”

“John-”

“No, Madi, without me, Flint would have had his gold months earlier, and in full too, would have had time to shore up Nassau, to find you and fight a war that was winnable,” he leant his head back against the rock and sighed. “So many men, dead, forgotten, taken by the sea, or starvation, or combat… They would be alive, were it not for me, Madi.”

John closed his eyes.

“I am a curse, a strange creature who by some witchcraft, or other fuckery, mattered for some short period of time. And it is far past the time that I rectify that peculiar mistake.”

“What are you talking about, John?”

John fell forward into her arms, conscious enough to whimper, but not enough to do much else.

Her men carried him back to the camp while she walked alongside him.

He railed against them, of course, but there really was nothing that he could do to stop them.

By the time they made it back to the camp, he was too unconscious to protest anymore.

The doctor said that he had not been eating anything more than bread and water, certainly not any of the fruit that they had in abundance on the island. It had caused old wounds to reopen, including the one he had been given when his leg had been taken more than twenty years before.

They tended to him.

Her husband woke three days later.

He seemed confused at first, before slipping into a sort of resigned despair.

She made sure that she was the first to speak.

“Without you, Rogers would have had me shot,” she looked him directly in the eye, daring him to contradict her. “Or the British would have taken my camp when Hornigold attacked the Island.  Or, even earlier than that, your Captain, my friend, would have allowed himself and his entire crew to starve in the doldrums.”

She stood and headed towards the door.

“Am I forgiven then?”

Madi stopped and turned to face him.

“No. In truth, I do not know if I have the capacity to forgive you. That war, my war, might have ended in tragedy, as you have insisted all these years. But, it might have ended in triumph if you had let it.”

John nodded.

“We can part ways when your mother moves the camp. You can go with her, and I will…”

Madi shook her head.

“I may never forgive you, John Silver, but I will always love you.”

“When do we depart?”

Madi smiled.

“In two weeks.”

She left their hut.

**Author's Note:**

> Black Sails was a complex show with complex characters. I thought it would be interesting to see how Madi and Silver would react to one another after the events of Treasure Island if they were allowed that complexity which Robert Louis Stevenson probably never dreamed of giving them (like it was 1883, the fact that he had an affable pirate at all was pretty rad for the time).
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts.


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